


Harry Potter and the Van de Graaf Generator

by The Muse of Apollo (mtwb)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Harry's in trouble, Hermione's a bit of a science geek, Hermione's hair, Married Harmony, Van de Graaf generator, harry's cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-26 22:22:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20749709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mtwb/pseuds/The%20Muse%20of%20Apollo
Summary: On their honeymoon, Harry and Hermione find themselves in Boston. On an excursion to the Science Museum of Boston, Harry gets himself into a bit of trouble.





	Harry Potter and the Van de Graaf Generator

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tyrannic_Puppy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tyrannic_Puppy/gifts).

> Author: The Muse of Apollo  
Word Count: 1376  
Author’s Note: This was written for Chris Goodluck, who won Hermione’s Birthday Drabble Challenge 2019. His prompt was: Van de Graaf Generator + Hermione = Crazy Hair. I am 100,000% positive that this one-shot is not what he thought he’d get when he prompted us this. :)

**August 14, 2003 – Boston, MA, USA **

Boston was a lovely city and by far Hermione’s favorite place they had visited so far. New York had been a lot of fun, but it was just so...big and everything moved so fast there, it had been overwhelming. Even though she had grown up near London, she hadn’t been prepared for just how fast New York seemed to move.

Boston on the other hand, while still very large, wasn’t cramped and the pace of life seemed to be much slower, more enjoyable. Plus there were tons of Irish around, so the fish and chips were amazing, almost as good as back home.

Harry had liked New York better, but she knew that was only because New York had better pizza. Hermione glanced at her husband and grinned. Harry Potter was her husband, and every time she thought about that she couldn’t help but grin like a fool. They had been married for six days now and Hermione could not be any happier. Harry saw her grinning and gave her a smirk before pulling her along towards the ticket booth.

The Museum of Science was not a pretty building from the outside. It looked mostly like a university building meant to house science courses. But Hermione thought that it suited the museum just fine. The tickets were cheap so they had no problem adding it to their itinerary.

“We’d like two tickets to the main museum,” Harry said when they to the front of the ticket booth’s queue.

After Harry had received their tickets, Hermione bounced up and down. “Harry, do you think we can go see it first?”

Harry grinned. “I still don’t know what’s so great about a big giant ball of metal.”

“You’ll see! It’s a Van de Graaf generator.”

“You mean those things that make your hair stick up on end? They had one of those in primary.”

“Yeah.”

Harry laughed. “Are you going to touch it?”

Hermione scowled then grinned. “Only if you do, husband. Only if you do.”

Harry just smiled at her, and then let her lead him through the main entrance. She’d been going on and on about the Boston Science Museum since they had arrived in the city the day before. Harry didn’t really get it, but then he wasn’t really interested in any of the museums or libraries that they had visited during the first six days of their honeymoon. He didn’t hate them, and he found many things interesting, but really he just loved to see the happiness on his wife’s face whenever they went somewhere where she could learn something new.

Because they were not a part of an official tour, they were able to choose the exhibits they saw first. Hermione had picked up a map from the ticket office, so they slowly made their way towards the center of the museum. Along the way, they saw some really strange things, or at least Harry thought they were strange. There was an exhibit of brains from various creatures, which was just creepy, then there was the exhibit of microwaves that showed exactly what happened when you tried to microwave a light bulb – though Harry couldn’t fathom why you’d want to put a light bulb in a microwave. It took them nearly an hour to get to their destination. Hermione loved to browse, and despite her interest in the giant electricity machine, she seemed to shoot from one exhibit to another, expressing her joy at the things she was learning or lecturing about the things she knew about already.

“It’s the biggest generator in the world,” Hermione said in awe when they finally spotted the giant metal objects that towered over them in the air. “It isn’t like the Van de Graaf generator you saw in primary. For one, you can’t touch this one.”

“So do you think they will let it play a song?” Harry had been hoping since she had told him about the Van de Graaf generator, that he could hear it play the Imperial March.

“I shouldn’t have told you about that,” Hermione said with a laugh. “I think they only do that for school tours, but maybe we’ll get lucky. I’d be much more impressed if it played the theme from Star Trek.”

Harry just shook his head at his Trekkie of a wife and asked, “So there is one here that you can touch?”

Hermione laughed and looked at her map. She then led him to the side wall where there were people lined up around a much smaller version of the Van de Graaf machine.

“So, are you going to touch it?” Harry asked.

“Why do you want to see my hair like that,” Hermione asked, indicating the woman who had just touched the metal sphere who now had her hair floating up above her head. “It’s bushy enough as it is.”

“Your hair is just fine, Hermione, you know that,” Harry soothed. “I’ll touch it first if you want. I mean it’s not going to do much since mine already sticks up and floats around like that. Hey! Maybe this is the solution to my hair problems. It might get it to lay down flat since mine already looks like I’m plugged into a socket all the time.”

Hermione giggled. “Good luck with that. Fine, I’ll touch it. But we’ll have to go back to the hotel room so that I can at least brush it back into place.”

“I’ve got your hair scrunchie, you can just use that if you like.”

“Why are you still carrying that? I figured you would leave that back in the room.”

Harry shrugged. “I thought you might need it. And you handed it to me, so I held onto it.”

“That’s sweet,” Hermione said and then proceeded to kiss him softly on the lips. A group of kids who were had been watching the smaller generator from behind them laughed and oohed at them, causing Hermione to pull back and blush furiously. She buried her face into Harry’s neck. He could feel her grinning, which made his grin get wider.

When they got to the front of the line, Harry went first. Like he had assumed, the generator didn’t do much to his hair, which was already all over the place. It did make it seem a bit fluffier, but when he let go of the sphere his hair went back to its usual bird’s nest of messiness.

He stepped away and then turned to watch as Hermione walked up to the metal sphere and gently placed her hand along its side. He began to laugh almost immediately, knowing that he was going to pay for his amusement later. Her hair almost immediately started to frizz up. After a minute or so, several strands of her hair were standing straight up, as if she were somehow upside down. This only caused Harry to laugh harder.

After a while, Hermione had had enough and let go of the Van de Graaf generator. She then stalked towards him with a scowl on her face. “I hope you enjoyed that, Potter. I will be getting even with you.”

Harry just reached out and hugged her. “Thank you for doing that, that was great. I’m sorry I laughed.”

Hermione hugged him back and whispered into his ear, “You’re not sorry yet, but you will be.”

Harry just laughed and then pulled away and handed her the scrunchie that had been on his wrist the entire day. She grinned at him and then proceeded to wrangle her wild hair back into a ponytail. “Where to next?” Harry asked.

“We can keep looking around. Maybe if we stick around...” Hermione was interrupted by the sound of the imperial march being played in the background. The two newlyweds looked back at the giant Van de Graaf generator that was in the center of the room, which was now arching electricity into the air in time with the music it was generating.

“Wow,” Harry said in awe. “That’s so cool.”

Hermione grinned and wrapped an arm around her husband’s waist. He was such a loon, but he was her loon and she wouldn’t change it for anything in the world.

**Author's Note:**

> I've never been to the Science Museum of Boston, so any description in the story is based purely on the minuscule amount of research I did to write this. I do know for a fact that the museum does hold the largest Van de Graaf generator in the world, and that it can, in fact, play the Imperial March from Star Wars (just google it if you don't believe me).


End file.
